Author: Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepene… Go to person page >

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Lord of the wide extended [extensive] main. C. Wesley. [For use at Sea.] First published in the Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740, p. 31, in 10 stanza of 4 lines, and headed "A Hymn to be Sung at Sea" (Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. i. p. 229). In the 1830 Supplement to the Wesleyan Hymn Book it was given in two parts as:—
1. Lord of the wide, extensive main. No. 761.
2. Infinite God, Thy greatness spanned. No. 762.
Both these parts have come into use in Great Britain and America as separate hymns.
Mr. G. J. Stevenson, in his Methodist Hymn Book Notes, 1883, p. 591, says of this hymn:—

"It was probably written in 1735, previously to the poet and his brother John sailing to America with General Oglethorpe and the Moravians. This seems to be plainly indicated by the language of the second verse:—
"For Thee we leave our native shore,
In other climes Thy works explore."

This view, however, is not that of Dr. Osborn, the editor of the WesleyPoetical Works, 1868-72. In vol. i. pp. 228-231, there are given the following hymns:—
"Servant of God, the summons hear."; "Lord of the wide-extended main"; and "Glory to Thee, Whose powerful word;" and to the first of these ("Servant of God," &c.) Dr. Osborn adds the following note:—

"The animating strains of this hymn and the two next are by no means in accordance with Charles Wesley's spiritual condition and mood of mind in December, 1737, when Mr. Whitefield first left England for America. They were more probably composed in preparation for his second voyage, which began in August, 1739. Nor can we imagine anything more suitable for the occasion; while in the hymns "To be Sung at Sea" ["Lord of the wide-extended main"] and "In a Storm" ["Glory to Thee, Whose powerful word"] the Christian and the poet appear to equal advantage. It may be doubted if the full assurance of faith was ever more finely expressed, or at the same time more rationally vindicated, than in the second and the third of the three hymns which follow one another here."

This suggestion by Dr. Osborn that the date is 1739 is made almost certain with regard to “Servant of God," &c, and presumably of the other two, by the fact that "Servant of God," &c, is found in Divine Hymns for the Use of the Societies, by Richard Wyan, 1739. This tract contains three hymns, two by Wyan (one addressed to Whitefield) and "Servant of God, the summons hear,” by C. Wesley. The Wesleys, by printing the three hymns, “Servant of God," &c," Lord of the wide," &c, and "Glory to Thee, &c," as consecutive hymns in the Hymns & Sacred Poems, 1740, seem to fix the date of these hymns as 1739, when Whitefield went on his second voyage to America.
The hymn "Servant of God, the summons hear," is rarely used, whilst "Glory to Thee, Whose powerful word," is given "in several collections in America, and as "All praise to Thee, Whose powerful word," in a few in Great Britain. [William T. Brooke]